Scientific
information on improving serious disease through nutrition and treating the
causes of disease – summarised from 100 of the world’s most cutting-edge health
books

Welcome to 'Health, Healing and Hummingbirds'

Hi there! I have a disease called M.E. It is similar medically to diseases such
as M.S. and polio but also has a few unique (and hideous) features all
its own. My case is severe but has been very slowly improving over the
last few years.

For the last 8 years I’ve been
working (slowly) on a website focused on M.E. advocacy and giving
patients the information that I wish I’d had when I was first ill. The
website has recently been published as a book featuring a foreword text
by M.E. expert Dr Byron Hyde.

Lately I have been
reading as much as I can about health and healing. Some of the
information out there is genuinely amazing. So much more impressive and
compelling than I had been led to expect. But finding the little
nuggets of gold amongst all the huge piles of worthless junk takes time.
Time that many ill people just don’t have.

Health,
Healing & Hummingbirds aims to get a summary of the cutting-edge
information on health I’ve learned out to people in the earliest stages
of their disease. Where it can do the most good.

A summary of the HHH philosophy

HHH is about healing. Finding and
treating the causes of disease and giving the body the resources it needs to heal
itself – rather than just endlessly chasing and suppressing symptoms.

Modern drug-based medicine is hugely problematic
but the vast majority of what is promoted as 'alternative' medicine (for want
of a better term) is also unscientific and unhelpful.

Prescription drugs aimed at symptom suppression
cause many deaths and serious side effects. Although herbal and other treatments
are safer than drugs, most ‘alternative’ medicine practitioners also focus
primarily on symptom suppression. Suppressing symptoms does nothing to treat
the actual cause and so is a never ending task. It can have a huge cost in
terms of lost time, money and hope. It also allows the disease process to worsen
more quickly over time.

People aren’t ill due to a lack of drugs such as
calcium-channel blockers or beta-blockers nor a lack of homeopathic treatments,
rare fruit extracts or juices, herbs, crystal healing or aromatherapy. I don’t
think it makes logical sense to support most ‘mainsteam’ drug-based medical
practitioners or most ‘alternative’ practitioners.

The important distinction is between medicine which
works and medicine which doesn’t, not some artificial line between so-called
‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ medicine.

It is a myth that orthomolecular, holistic and
environmental medicine rejects science, is not backed up by evidence.
Dr Abram Hoffer explains that it is in fact ‘mainstream’
medicine, as it is most often practiced, that is not scientific. He writes,

Modern medicine is not scientific, it
is full of prejudice, illogic and susceptible to advertising. Doctors are not
taught to reason, they are programmed to believe in whatever their medical
schools teach them and the leading doctors tell them. Over the past 20 years
the drug companies, with their enormous wealth, have taken medicine over and
now control its research, what is taught and the information released to the
public.

Dr Sherry Rogers writes,

I have to laugh when people ask me if
I do alternative, herbal, acupuncture or holistic medicine. ‘No,’ I reply. ‘We
do state-of-the-art medicine. In other words, we find the biochemical,
nutritional and environmental causes and cures rather than blindly drugging
everything. Sure, herbs are gentler, safer and more physiologic than drugs and
holistic medicine attempts to incorporate many diverse modalities, etc. But
there is no substitute for finding the underlying biochemical causes and cures.
This is real medicine. This is where medicine should and would have been
decades ago, if it had not been abducted by the pharmaceutical industry.

Epigentics experts explain that eating the food
that suits your genes and having optimum nutrient levels plays an enormous role
in activating or deactivating the genes which contribute to disease. Your genetics are not your destiny.

The body has an amazing
capacity to heal. Making sure your body has all the materials it needs to run properly is an essential
part of any program aimed at reclaiming lost health. Doing otherwise is like
asking someone to build you a house and only giving them trailer-loads of
doorknobs to do it with. It just can’t be done.

We are brainwashed to always
be excited about and focused on the newest and sexiest and most exotic new
drugs (and other treatments) to cure us. But most of this is just marketing
hype. As Dr T. Levy recently remarked, ‘Government and the traditional
medicine industry are looking for cures about as diligently as crack dealers
are searching for a non-addictive form of cocaine.’

The good news is that it is
the deeply boring and ‘unsexy’ stuff like making sure your body has enough of
all the major vitamins and minerals it needs and a low toxic load which really gets
the big results!

This is all really good news
for anyone that is ill. No matter what disease you have
you have far more power to improve your health than you have been led to
believe.

So that’s what this site is about

Using the best information from experts in their
fields, and the most appropriate tools and modern tests available including
using many cutting-edge testing and other technologies, to find and treat the
causes of disease gives the best outcomes.

How much health can be improved varies from patient
to patient and how much of the damage done is permanent. The earlier treatment
is started the better and quicker the results will be.

Having a trained doctor and nutritional expert to administer
testing and help you on your way is ideal and highly recommended but several parts of the program you
can safely do yourself, if you are willing to read and learn a little bit. What better time to start than now?

I hope you find
the website and all my book reviews and summaries useful. Happy reading everyone and the
best of future health to you all.

Jodi Bassett

Some excellent quotes to get you started

"All of the structure and function of the human body are built from and run on nutrients. ALL of them." Janet Lang.

“Results are all that matter to me. Alternative medicine works. We've all been taught that anything that is safe and inexpensive cannot possibly be really effective against "real diseases." It is time to rethink that, and especially to see for yourself what works.

Do something to improve your health. I think we should leave no stone unturned in our search for better health. I also believe that you get out of your body what you put into it. Your body will respond to your efforts to improve your health. The time to start is right now. Another old saying: "If not now, when? If not here, where? If not you, then who?"” Andrew Saul PhD, author of Fire Your Doctor!: How to Be Independently Healthy

‘The more toxins you are exposed to, the more nutrients you will use up in dealing with them. Every year, we are exposed to more and more toxins, and our DNA has had no time to adapt. Heavy metals such as lead, mercury, fluorine; pesticides; flame retardants that are even contaminating the Arctic; and hundreds of thousands of other new-to-nature molecules that every human has to deal with. And like it or not, pharmaceutical medications are mostly toxins too.

At the same time, intensive farming, soil depletion and poor diets (often foisted on us for spurious reasons such as fear of cholesterol) mean that it's normal to be deficient now. We are deficient in vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients as well. What chance does a human have? A much better one if she doesn't buy the hype from big companies, the dogma from pharma-paid scientists, and the bullying from governments. Take your vitamins.’ Damien Downing, M.D.

‘The belief that “genetics is destiny”- don’t get me started. Even by
the most conservative geneticists’ standards, we have anywhere from 80%
to 97% control over our own genetic expressions. We ALL have dormant
genes for all sorts of things, both good and bad. Genetics can have some
influence, certainly…but genes are turned on and off by regulatory
genes and regulatory genes are mainly controlled by nutrients.

A
gene will not express itself unless the internal environment is
conducive to its expression.The brain and body simply have to have
certain raw materials to work with in order to function properly.’ Nora
T. Gedgaudas, author of Primal Body, Primal Mind

"Man's body was designed to function best with high blood and cellular levels of vitamin C - synthesised as needed by the liver. Due to an inborn error of metabolism, the vast majority of us no longer have the ability to make it, but that does not lessen our need for vitamin C or the benefits derived form it." Dr Thomas Levy, author of Curing the Incurable and Primal Pancea

‘There are many people whose diets are relatively good, but
they still need extra nutrients due to biochemical individuality and
many other factors, such as genetics or chronic deficiency.

Orthomolecular
therapists use optimum doses, which may be small or large. The
important characteristic of the dose is not its size, but its efficacy -
whether it is doing the job it is supposed to do to make the patient
well.’ Dr Abram Hoffer, author of Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone

‘All of us, regardless of our ideologies, ethnic backgrounds or anything else are genetically “hunter gatherers” and 99.99% identical to humans living 40,000 to 100,000 years ago. We are, in effect, creatures of the Ice Age and designed to consume a diet rich in animal source foods and natural fats, together with a variety of fibrous plant matter.

Plant foods are wonderful. They are far from the entire picture for health, however.’ Nora Gedgaudas, author of Primal Body, Primal Mind

"Functional medicine is really looking at health of the
cell. And what can we do to help the individual make the environment for
their cells, an environment for doing the biochemistry life more ideal.
So that comes down to the fruit you eat or do not eat, the quality of
the air you breathe, the water you drink, the toxic load that is in your
body is a result of the exposure you had over a lifetime. If you
couldn't get the toxins out the day you were exposed to them, they get
parked in your fat and did you know that your brain is 70% fat?

So
if you can't get the toxins out you had today with your whatever your
exposure was, you're parking it in your fat and your brain which is
going to create havoc over time.' Dr Terry Wahls, author of Minding My Mitochondria

'As Price saw so clearly, chronic disease manifests not so much as a collection of symptoms, but is itself a symptom of malnutrition's inexorable conclusion--death to the organism. "The accumulating evidence suggests the consideration of disease being, in many cases, more correctly speaking, a symptom and that individuals often, instead of dying because they contract disease, primarily develop disease because they are dying."

Without provision of the nutrients we need, no body can be built strong and resistant and no lasting healing can take place.' Dr Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions and Eat Fat, Lose Fat (with Mary Enig PhD)

'After 40 years research, Irwin Stone unfolds his startling conclusion that an ancient genetic mutation has left the primate virtually alone among animals in not producing ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) in his own body. By treating it as a "minimum daily requirement" instead of the missing metabolite it really is, we are living in a state of sub-clinical scurvy whose symptoms have been attributed to other ailments.

The answer is to change our thinking about Vitamin C and consume enough to replenish this long lost "healing factor." Stone illustrates, with massive documentation, Vitamin C's remarkable ability to fight disease, counteract the ill effects of pollution and prolong healthy life -- easily and inexpensively.' The Vitamin C Foundation, on Vitamin C: The Healing Factor By Irwin Stone

‘From conception onward, we have been subject to any number
of toxins that challenged the healthy development of body and mind,
Accordingly, our bodies have bent into various physical, chemical, and
emotional contortions to accommodate these injuries.

Imagine a tree growing in rocky soil, next to a cliff, in
the shade of bigger trees. To survive it must grow crooked to search out light
and water. We wouldn’t call it a bad tree for being crooked though; on the contrary,
it is a wonderful tree, a heroic tree. Your body is the same, compensating and
adapting as best it can to the barren, rocky soil amid occluded sunlight of our
modern society.

I’m not saying that if you are sick you should learn to live with it. What I’m
saying is that wherever you are right now physically, it is your body’s wise response
to the circumstances thrust upon it. Some of these may be beyond your immediate
control. But a lot of it may be just not listening to yourbody. Your
body told you what it wanted, but you did not listen; you gave it harmful
things, and your body did its best to adapt to them.’ Charles Eisenstein, author of The Yoga of Eating

‘Molecular medicine was a term used by two-time Nobel
laureate in chemistry and peace Linus Pauling, Ph.D., in his landmark article
on the mechanism of production of sickle cell anemia published in 1949. It
defined a new perspective on the origin of disease based upon the recognition
that specific mutations of the genes can create an altered "molecular
environment" and therefore the modified physiological function associated
with specific diseases.

The Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) which were
developed by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council to
establish the nutritional needs of "practically all healthy people"
were not based upon the more recent information concerning the range of
biochemical individuality among individuals. The RDAs that describe
"normal" nutritional needs have questionable relevancy to the concept
of optimal nutrition based upon individual needs.’ Jeffrey Bland Ph.D, author of Biochemical Individuality

'Many people are losing their faith in the medical profession because many doctors are unwilling to accept what is becoming common knowledge: nutrition and nutrient therapies are safer, cheaper and more effective than most other medical treatment.

It is clear that most media reporters do not know the current nutrition literature, they do not know the old literature, and they do not know the middle-aged literature. If they do not know the literature, they should not be writing articles.’ Michael Janson, M.D.

"Deep healing is quite different from symptom removal. Symptom removal is the type of doctoring offered by the medical profession and by most holistic doctors as well. Symptoms are the focus, by and large, and the goal is to make them go away. The problem is that symptoms often point to deeper imbalances that are not usually not addressed.

Deep healing is a much more profound process. It has to do with restoring the body to its former state of health. This means restoring its energy production system, its oxidation rate, its minerals ratios and much more. Symptom removal occurs as a “side effect” of these programs. Healing therefore usually takes longer and involves lifestyle changes as well. It is more work for both the client and the practitioner.

Why are symptomatic approaches so popular? 1. They appear simple. This means they are largely superficial and easily understood by doctors and patients alike. Balancing methods are much more difficult to comprehend and to practice, as well.

2. Doctors, drug companies and hospitals love them. This is sadly the case because the patients never really get well. They always come back with the next symptom or problem, so it is good for business. Most holistic physicians are still recommending symptomatic treatments, in my estimation. Therefore, no matter what they profess, they are less interested in deeper balancing methods that actually heal the patient at deep levels. However, overall they are much better than conventional medical doctors I have met.

3. Symptomatic approaches ask very little of the patient in most cases. The person is allowed to keep eating junk food, skip adequate rest and sleep and ignore the problems in their lives." Dr Lawrence Wilson

'There are more than ten thousand published scientific papers that make it quite clear that there is not one body process (such as what goes on inside cells or tissues) and not one disease or syndrome (from the common cold to leprosy) that is not influenced -- directly or indirectly -- by vitamin C.' Dr. Emanuel Cheraskin, Dr. Ringsdorf and Dr. Sisley in THE VITAMIN C CONNECTION.

'There are more politics in modern medicine than in modern politics itself. Today's average physician deserves even less trust than today's average politician, as doctors continue their refusal to allow the scientific data on the profound benefits of vitamins and other antioxidant supplements to reach their eyes and brains.

And the staunch support of a press, which collectively no longer has a shred of journalistic or scientific integrity, completes the framing of today's colossal medical fraud. Money always rules the day: properly-dosed vitamins would eliminate far too much of the profit of prescription-based medicine.' Dr Thomas Levy, author of Curing the Incurable and Primal Pancea

‘Vitamin C is the world’s best natural antibiotic, antiviral,
antitoxin and antihistamine. This book’s recurring emphasis on vitamin C
might suggest that I am offering a song with only one verse. Not so.

As
English literature concentrates on Shakespeare, so orthomolecular
therapy concentrates on vitamin C. Let the greats be given their due.
The importance of vitamin C cannot be overemphasised.’ Andrew Saul PhD,
author of VITAMIN C: The Real Story

'Each person must take an indi­vidualized program which they can dis­cover if they are lucky to have a competent orthomolecular doctor. If they do not, they can read the literature and work out for themselves what is best for them. I believe the public is hungry for information.

As more and more drugs drop by the wayside, the professions are going to become more and more dependent on safe ways of help­ing people, and using drugs is not the way to do that. Using nutrients is.

We have to continue our way without regard to the opposition. If not we will soon be working for them.' Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.

'What you eat has more power over disease and aging than any other medicine your doctor can prescribe. Food is awesomely powerful.' Dr Sherry Rogers, author of Detoxify or Die (etc.)

“Orthomolecular treatment does not lend itself to rapid drug-like control of symptoms, but patients get well to a degree not seen by tranquilizer therapists who believe orthomolecular therapists are prone to exaggeration. Those who've seen the results are astonished.” Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.

'Modern drug based medicine is as incomplete as a novel written with three vowels. As discordant as a symphony constructed using only some of the notes. High dose nutritional therapy is the much needed missing part of our vocabulary of healthcare. The fight against disease needs all the help it can get.

Good nutrition and vitamins do not directly cure disease, the body does. You provide the raw materials and the inborn wisdom of your body makes the repairs. Someday healthcare without megavitamin therapy will be seen as we today see childbirth without sanitation or surgery without anaesthetic.” Andrew Saul PhD, author of Fire Your Doctor! and VITAMIN C: The Real Story

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is condemnation without investigation.” William Paley

Note that the aim of this site is to provide a starting point for health and healing research for ill people; especially very overwhelmed and disabled ill people. This site provides recommendations, summaries and reviews of books but is not meant to be a replacement for actually reading some of these wonderful health books if the reader is at all well enough to do so. (Plus getting individualised advice from a doctor that is also an orthomolecular medicine expert if possible). There is no substitute for reading as many of these books as you can. The HHH site can only really hint at their full brilliance. The amount of insight, scientific references, logic, intelligence, compassion and experience in the recommended books will most likely amaze you. HHH aims to encourage people to do their own reading and learning, and to always make up their own minds. All content copyright Jodi Bassett 2006 - 2014.

Disclaimer: HHH does not dispense medical advice or recommend treatment, and assumes no responsibility for treatments undertaken by visitors to the site. It is a resource providing information for education, research and advocacy only. In no way does reading this site replace the need for an evaluation of your entire health history from a physician. Please consult your own health-care provider regarding any medical issues relating to the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition.